


Don't Speak

by untiltheyfindtheperfectgirl



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-06
Updated: 2018-11-11
Packaged: 2019-08-19 14:32:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16536422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/untiltheyfindtheperfectgirl/pseuds/untiltheyfindtheperfectgirl
Summary: “No, Richie! No! No! No!” he screamed dropping to his knees, scraping them along the pavement as he collapsed next to Richie who lay like a ragdoll with limbs jutting out awkwardly as blood pooled beneath his head.





	1. Date Night

**Author's Note:**

> Honestly, who knows why I'm starting yet another multi chapter fic when I have like 5 on the go already...
> 
> I don't want to give too much away in terms of where I'm going with this but please let me know what you guys think so far!!

“Love you,” Eddie whispered, pushing himself up onto his toes and wrapping his arms around Richie’s shoulders tightly.

“Love you too,” Richie responded, lips brushing the shell of Eddie’s ear making the shorter boy shiver pleasantly. “Now get going,” Richie added, smacking Eddie’s butt playfully. “Before you’re grounded until we’re twenty-five for missing curfew.” 

Eddie whined but released Richie before rocking back on his heels.

“Night, Eds,” Richie murmured, leaning down to press a kiss to Eddie’s forehead.

“Night,” Eddie answered before turning to walk up the dark street towards his house. He turned back every few yards, eyes peeking over his shoulder at Richie who waited on the corner of the street watching Eddie until he made it to his front porch just as he always did after walking Eddie home from a date.

Finally at his door, Eddie turned to wave at Richie who waved back before turning on his heel and heading in the direction of his own home.

Eddie hummed as he dug his keys out of his pocket, lips frozen in a small grin just as they always were after he had spent time with his boyfriend.

_Thunk!_

_‘What the…’_ Eddie thought as spun on his heel, squinting across the darkness from which he heard a dull thud and a raised voice. He could make out a singular figure standing over a lump in the middle of the road. 

“Shit,” Eddie breathed before sprinting down the road as the figure suddenly turned to flee. “Richie!” Eddie screamed as he approached. “Richie!”

“No!” Eddie shrieked as he neared the mass in the middle of the street, finally able to make out the details of what lay in the middle of the road.

“No, Richie! No! No! No!” he screamed dropping to his knees, scraping them along the pavement as he collapsed next to Richie who lay like a ragdoll with limbs jutting out awkwardly as blood pooled beneath his head.

“Richie! No! No! No!” Eddie screamed at the top of his lungs, tears streaming down his face as he pawed at Richie’s body in a panic. “Richie, no, please, no, no, no,” he chanted, cupping Richie’s cheeks between his hands as the blood continued to pool.

“Help!” Eddie screamed, throat burning with the effort, as he realized the sticky blood was gushing from a wound hidden by Richie’s overgrown curls. “Richie! Help! Somebody, help! Please, somebody fucking help me! Help! Please!”


	2. I Don't Know

“Hey, hey! What happened?!”

Eddie looked up at the sound of one his neighbors calling to him as they rushed down their driveway towards the two boys in the middle of the street. Eddie felt like he was underwater, his neighbour’s voice sounding muffled and distorted in his ears. 

“Please help me,” Eddie whimpered weakly as tears streamed down his cheeks. He clutched Richie’s unconscious body to his chest as he knelt in the middle of the road. 

“I’m gonna call an ambulance, son,” the man told Eddie before turning to run back up to his house.

Eddie shook with the force of his sobs. His hands were crimson and his face was splotched with blood from the way he was burying his face in Richie’s blood-soaked curls.

“Hurry,” Eddie whimpered to himself, rocking Richie’s body as he cried. 

* * *

 

Eddie shivered as he watched the blue and red lights of the ambulance flash as it approached, feeling almost detached from his body. His neighbour had returned with a throw that he had wrapped around Eddie’s shoulders and a few other neighbours had come out of their houses to see what the all commotion was about.

If Eddie had been thinking straight he would have been surprised that his own mother wasn’t peering around the curtains of their living room to get a good look at the dramatic scene unfolding on their street. 

“Sir, sir?”

Eddie blinked, eyes refocusing as he realized that the ambulance had stopped in front of them and the paramedics were standing over him and Richie. 

“Please h-help,” Eddie whispered, voice cracking as his body shook.

“What happened, kid?” one of the male paramedics asked, setting down a yellow spinal board beside Eddie.

“I,” Eddie swallowed, blinking through his tears as two male paramedics carefully pulled Richie from Eddie’s arms and laid him out on the spinal board. “I don’t know,” Eddie admitted. “But his, his head! His head is bleeding!” he explained. He felt as though he were slowly regaining his grip on reality.

“Are you hurt?” the third paramedic asked.

“Sir, sir?” one of the paramedics called as they crouched over Richie, poking at his neck. 

“He can’t hear you!” Eddie spat angrily, ignoring the female paramedic's concern about Eddie. Richie was clearly unconscious, why would they try and talk to him? Weren’t they supposed to be the professionals?

“Patient is unresponsive,” the man continued as though Eddie hadn’t spoken which made the teenager more upset. “Airway clear,” he called out again as he peered into Richie’s mouth.

Eddie watched as the three prodded at Richie’s unconscious form, calling out numbers and words that made no sense in Eddie’s muddled brain.

“Richie,” Eddie sobbed as they strapped a brace around Richie’s neck. “Wait, no, Richie!” he called in a panic as they slowly lifted the spinal board that Richie had been strapped to.

“Sweetheart,” the female paramedic started, placing a hand on Eddie’s shoulder in an attempt to keep him from interfering with them transferring Richie into the back of the truck. “You have to step back. We need room,” she told him.

“R-rich,” he continued to gasp as he tried to push past the woman.

“Seriously,” the paramedic sighed, stepping in front of the shorter boy and blocking him as he reached for Richie’s arm once they finally got him up into the back of the ambulance. “You need to let us do our job. 

“He, he n-needs me,” Eddie sobbed, his hands that had become crusted with drying blood wringing the front of his equally blood-stained t-shirt anxiously.  “He needs me!” 

“Okay, okay,” the paramedic nodded, trying to calm Eddie down. “You can come with us but I need to you to stay back while we take care of him, okay?” she asked, speaking as though Eddie were a small child.

Eddie nodded, gasping for air as he began to hyperventilate.

“Okay,” she nodded, leading Eddie into the back of the ambulance and sitting him down on a bench next to Richie’s gurney. “Here,” she murmured, wrapping a blood-free blanket around Eddie’s shaking shoulders.

“T-thank y-y-you,” Eddie gasped, hands shaking as he white knuckled the edges of the blanket and watched with wide eyes as one of the men held a thick, blood-stained pad of gauze to Richie’s wound. 

The paramedic watched Eddie carefully, wary of the teenager passing out or going into shock. She studied him, mentally checking for injuries as she contemplated the fact that Eddie’s face was completely covered in Richie’s blood. 

“Do you want a wipe?” she asked Eddie softly, gesturing to the blood drying on Eddie’s skin.

Eddie shook his head sharply. 

“Alright,” the paramedic nodded. “Okay, we’re almost at the hospital. We’re almost there.”

* * *

“Seventeen-year-old male, unresponsive,” Eddie listened to a nurse call out as Richie was rushed through a hallway on a gurney once they reached the hospital, Eddie stumbling along behind them. “Head injury, severe blood loss, paramedics cite bradypnea-”

“Wait!” Eddie called as they slipped through a set of double doors that swung shut behind them and locked before Eddie could follow. “Wait!” he shouted, banging on the solid doors. 

“Excuse me?”

Eddie spun around, eyes wild and panicked as he searched for the source of the voice. 

“Can I help you?” asked a middle-aged nurse dressed in blue scrubs.

“My, uh,” Eddie blinked rapidly as he tried to organize his thoughts. “I need to get back there. Richie’s hurt and they just took him-” 

“Medical personnel only, I’m afraid,” the woman explained with an apologetic frown. “Let me take you down to reception and we can figure out what’s going on.”

* * *

“Hi,” the nurse smiled at the receptionist as they approached the ER front desk. “I just found this gentleman in triage. I think he needs a little bit of help.”

“Richie,” Eddie blurted before blushing. “I, uh, I just came in an ambulance with Richie Tozier. I don’t know where they took him,” Eddie explained.

“Oh, yeah,” the receptionist nodded, eyes wide as she took in Eddie’s blood-covered form. “I saw your group come in. Why don’t we get your friend registered while I try and get you some more details?”

Eddie nodded in agreement, accepting the clipboard the woman handed him before the nurse that had helped him departed.

“Whatever information you can, just put it in there,” the receptionist explained. “Is there anyone we can call?” she added.

Eddie blinked down at the clipboard he was now clutching, staring at it blankly. 

“Hon?” the receptionist called, waving her hand slightly to get Eddie’s attention.

“Parents,” Eddie croaked, looking up at her as he blinked back a fresh wave of tears. “Huh-his pa-parents.” 

“Number?” she asked, picking up the receiver on the telephone in front of her, finger hovering over the keypad.

“I-I,” Eddie swallowed. “I don’t know,” he admitted.

The Toziers’ had had the same home phone number for as long as Eddie could remember. He had dialed that same ten digit number thousands of times over the years but he couldn’t for the life of him come up with even one digit in the sequence. 

“I’m sorry, I can’t remember,” he added in the same hollow voice as before.

“Okay, just fill out what you know on there and I’ll look them up in the phonebook,” the receptionist smiled kindly.

Eddie nodded, turning to move towards the vinyl chairs lining the waiting room. He stumbled over his feet as his vision swam.

Eddie propped the clipboard on one knee in front of him, hand shaking as he pressed the tip of the pen to the paper form.

The receptionist had already filled out the information they had collected from Richie’s wallet but the medical background was left blank. 

**_Allergies_ **

Eddie gulped, blinking down at the sheet as he tried to sort his thoughts out enough to complete the patient form.

Allergies? Did Richie have any allergies?

Eddie knew he had one but at that moment he couldn’t have provided an answer for the question if someone’s life depended on it. Eddie let out a clipped and hysterical laugh as he realised, funnily enough someone’s did. Richie’s.

**_Medications_ **

**_Height_ **

**_Weight_ **

**_Heart Conditions_ **

**_Family History_ ** ****

Eddie swallowed as he felt tears well up in his eyes once again.

“I,” Eddie started loudly in the otherwise empty waiting room causing the receptionist to startle at the noise. Eddie pushed himself out of the chair and stumbled towards the reception desk. “I don’t know. I can’t...” 

“That’s alright,” the woman nodded. “I think I’ve found your friend’s phone number. Wentworth Tozier? Is that his father’s name?”

Eddie nodded, swallowing the bile creeping up his throat as his eyelashes flushed with tears.


	3. Waiting

“1…2…3…4…5,” Eddie whispered to himself, counting the specks in one of the floor tiles in front of him in an attempt to calm himself down. 

It was something Eddie had done when he was feeling anxious for as long as he could remember. He’d stop, find the nearest item to fixate on and count out it’s details. Richie often tried to stop Eddie when he’d start compulsively counting, attempting to distract him with a ridiculous story or a crude joke.

Eddie squeezed his eyes tightly, a rush of tears slipping over his cheeks as he thought about Richie.

“Eddie!”

Eddie’s head shot up at the sound of his name. 

“Maggie,” Eddie sobbed when he saw a dishevelled Maggie Tozier rushing towards him, Wentworth not far behind her. Eddie threw himself out of the uncomfortable chair he’d been curled in for the last thirty minutes, stumbling over his feet before Maggie caught him in her open arms. 

“What happened?” she cried, cradling a sobbing Eddie to her chest.

“He, he,” Eddie gasped, breath stuttering in his chest. “I don’t know! His head, his head was bleeding. There was so much blood and he wouldn’t wake up. I tried to wa-wake him, I tried but he wouldn’t w-w-wake up. Th-there was s-s-s-so much bl-bl-bl-”

“Shh,” a wet faced Maggie hushed Eddie as he hiccupped through his tears, unable to get his words out. “Shh.”

“l’ll find out,” Wentworth told his wife, before leaving the two sobbing individuals to hold each other in the middle of the waiting room. 

“I-I’m s-s-sor-sorry,” Eddie sobbed, clinging to the front of Maggie’s coat

“Shh, stop,” Maggie hummed, tears falling into Eddie’s hair. “Don’t apologize. Shh.”

“Receptionist is trying to get a hold of someone,” Wentworth called as he approached them with the clipboard that Eddie had tried to fill out earlier. “Come on, let’s sit down.”

* * *

The three sat in a semi-circle in the corner of the room, Wentworth with the clipboard and pen poised in his shaking hands while Maggie sat next to him, Eddie draped from his chair over onto her shoulder.

“I-I tr-tried,” Eddie hiccupped as the three looked at the nearly empty form that was wrinkled with Eddie’s dried tears. “I tr-tried, but I just, I couldn’t remember. I’m s-sorry,” Eddie apologized covering his face with his hands as he wept quietly. 

“It’s okay, sweetie, it’s okay,” Maggie assured him as Wentworth began to fill out the form. 

“P-penicillin!” Eddie gasped, sitting up suddenly as tears continued to wet his cheeks.

“What?” Wentworth asked, looking up from the form in confusion.

“Penicillin,” Eddie repeated. “He’s, he’s allergic to penicillin,” Eddie called out to the receptionist as he tried to extricate himself from Maggie’s hug.

“He’s allergic to penicillin!” Eddie repeated as he rushed towards the desk.

“Alright,” the receptionist nodded. “Put it in the form.” 

“But he’s like, really allergic,” Eddie insisted. “You have to go and tell them! What if they give him some!” 

“I don’t think they’re going to give Mr. Tozier any penicillin with the injuries he’s got. Just put it in the form-”

“Are you a doctor?” Eddie cried. “Go and f-fucking tell them he’s ah-allergic to pen-penicillin goddammit!”

“Eddie,” Maggie called as she approached. 

“He could d-die!” Eddie continued to cry, flinching when Maggie wrapped an arm around his shoulders. “Go tell them!”

“Okay, okay,” the receptionist nodded. “I’ll go tell them. It’s okay. I’ll tell them.”

* * *

Not five minutes later the receptionist returned with a young woman dressed in greens and a scrub cap.

“Mr. and Mrs. Tozier?” the woman asked as she approached the three.

“That’s us,” Wentworth nodded, sitting up straighter in his chair. “How’s Richie?” 

“He’s in the I.C.U. right now,” the woman told them, clasping her hands in front of her. 

“I.C.U.?” Maggie gasped, covering her mouth with a shaking hand.

“Richie came in with a pretty severe head injury,” the woman explained. “He’s got a skull fracture and he’s hemorrhaged a large amount of blood.”

“How?” Maggie asked, tears streaming down her face as Eddie remained silent while his entire body trembled. 

“It appears as though the fracture was caused by a blow to the temple with a blunt object,” the doctor answered with a look of confusion. “But, I thought you would have more information on how this happened…”

“We just got here,” Wentworth explained. “He came in with Eddie,” he added turning to look at the teenager clinging to his wife. 

“I, I don’t know wh-what ha-happened,” Eddie admitted. “Richie walked me home and, and he had just dropped m-me off and I was trying, I was trying to unlock my door and I heard… this  _sound_ and I turned around and I just  _knew_ something was wrong so I ran and Ri-Richie was just b-bleeding on the ground,” Eddie explained, a fresh round of tears wetting his eyes. 

“Okay,” the woman nodded. “Well, I need to get back in there but I just wanted to give you all an update on Richard’s condition. As of right now he needs a blood transfusion and we are trying to minimize the swelling-” 

“His brain’s swelling?” Eddie squeaked. He had heard all about brain swelling on his mother’s soap operas and it never ended well for the fictional characters.

“Edema is very common following a traumatic brain injury-” 

“Is he going to die?” Eddie whimpered, sounding more and more like a terrified child.

“I promise you we’re doing our absolute best to help him,” the woman answered with a small frown. “I’ll update you all within the hour.” 

As soon as the woman had left the waiting room and disappeared down the hall Eddie burst into heart wrenching sobs, clinging to Maggie for dear life.

* * *

“Eddie, love,” Maggie croaked, throat raw from all of the crying. “Why don’t you head home and get cleaned up-” 

“No,” Eddie shook his head.

“You need to get some cleaned up and let your mother know you’re okay,” Wentworth tried to reason with him. “She’s probably worried sick.” 

“If I go home,” Eddie started in a small voice, avoiding Richie’s parent’s eyes. “She won’t let me come back. I can’t leave him here. I need to stay.” 

“Okay,” Maggie sighed. “Let’s just give her a call and then try to get you cleaned up, alright?”

“I guess,” Eddie shrugged half-heartedly.

_“Hullo?”_

“Mom?” Eddie squeaked. Sonia sounded as though she had been sleeping. 

 _“Eddie?”_ Sonia asked, clearly confused.  _“What time is it? Where are you?”_  

“It’s half-past midnight,” Eddie answered nervously.

 _“EDWARD KASPBRAK!”_ Sonia shrieked down the line making Eddie grimace and hold the receiver away from his ear.  _“WHERE ARE YOU? WHY AREN’T YOU IN YOUR BED!?!”_

“Mom, I’m at the hospital-” Eddie started only to be cut off by Sonia’s panicked squawks.

_“THE HOSPITAL?! ARE YOU HURT!? WHAT HAPPENED? WAS IT THAT TOZIER-”_

“Mom, I’m fine,” Eddie sighed, leaning against the reception desk and avoiding the receptionist’s eyes as he used her phone. “It’s Richie. Richie was hurt.” 

_“YOU GET HOME RIGHT NOW EDDIE-”_

“Mom, it’s really bad. I can’t just leave…”

_“RIGHT NOW, EDDIE! OR SO HELP ME-”_

“I didn’t call for this,” Eddie grumbled in irritation. “I just wanted to let you know I’m safe and I’ll see you as soon as I can. I’ll call you if I’m not coming home tomorrow,” Eddie finished, handing the receiver of the receptionist’s phone back to the woman so she could hang up on a screeching Sonia.

“Thanks,” Eddie sighed.

* * *

Maggie watched Eddie as she carefully scrubbed the dried blood from his face with a wet paper towel. The boy looked so small, so young. For a minute, she felt as though she had gone back eight years to a time when the boys were in middle school. To a time when Eddie was an overtly anxious, skinny little runt of a boy with a squeaky voice and chubby cheeks. 

“He’s going to be okay,” Maggie attempted to reassured Eddie despite the fact that she didn’t believe her own words.

Eddie blinked rapidly as if coming out of a trance and looked up at Maggie as she continued to wipe at a spot of blood in the corner of his mouth. 

“What,” Eddie paused, sniffling slightly. “But what if he isn’t?” Eddie whispered, his quiet words echoing in the otherwise empty restroom.

“He will be,” Maggie answered immediately.

“You don’t know that,” Eddie whispered softly, gaze falling back to his lap where his blood encrusted fingers twisted together anxiously. 

Maggie sighed, tossing the damp and discoloured paper into the nearest garbage can before taking Eddie’s face in her hands.

“Hey,” Maggie called making the boy look up at her with his wide and glassy eyes. “We’re gonna get through this. I promise,” Maggie told him. 

Eddie squeezed his eyes closed, tears crashing over the edges of his lids as he wrapped his arms around himself, tears staining the too-big fundraiser t-shirt Wentworth had purchased for him from the hospital gift shop. 

“I j-just want R-Richie,” Eddie admitted, body shaking with his wracking sobs as Maggie wrapped her arms around the teenager and pulled him to her chest. “I wuh-want R-Rich,” he repeated.


End file.
